Biomass production does not help the environment and is a threat to public health.

Her reaction is in no small part because Gear knows the public health implications of biomass: Wood pellet processing generates dust that travels to nearby homes, carrying hazardous pollutants that can worsen respiratory and other health issues.

Spectrum plans to start operations on two neighboring polluted properties, including the site of a now defunct sawmill called Del-Cook. Once a big employer in town, Del-Cook looms large in the memory of Adel’s Black and Latino communities. Census data shows the population surrounding the site is 77 percent people of color and they live within one mile of the property, which is so riddled with contaminants, it was designated a toxic brownfield. Cancer has already taken a staggering toll on the neighborhood.

The Spectrum facility intended for this site will be more than twice the size of Renewable Biomass

Group’s nearby plant. In fact, with a proposed capacity of 1.2 million metric tons of forest-derived

biomass fuel per year, it would be one of the largest wood pellet plants in the world. According to climate experts, this isn’t just bad news for Adel.

Greenwashing biomass’s dirty reality

The biomass industry is growing fast because, even though it relies on clear-cutting forests, it calls itself renewable. According to Nicole Rycroft, executive director of the environmental nonprofit Canopy, it’s anything but. Our planet is grappling with two ecological crises: unprecedented biodiversity loss and climate change. Biomass, she says, is fueling both. A mature forest can absorb 40 times more carbon than saplings, and there’s a massive release of carbon when a forest is cut down, she explains. “It will take decades, if not hundreds of years, for that original loss of carbon to be back to neutral.”

Yet, SELC Senior Attorney Heather Hillaker says, biomass producers are incentivized to push the “renewables” myth, because, in the European Union and the U.K., their customers — wood-pellet-fueled electric utilities — receive large subsidies intended for green energy, despite the fact that biomass fuel generates more carbon emissions than coal, according to data compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Boosted by these subsidies, the industry has seen virtually unchecked growth, especially in the South.

Currently, there are 28 large-scale pellet plants across the region, most of which opened only in the past decade. Today, they ship more than 9 million metric tons of trees and other types of biomass from Southern forests overseas annually. By SELC’s count, another 10 plants are in the works.

“In the South, we have mostly private land, and there are not a lot of regulations on what a landowner can do,” Hillaker explained. “There’s a big incentive for this industry to have access to this ‘wood basket’ in close proximity to ports.”

The clustering of these plants amplifies their impact, Hillaker says. And considering this North American coastal plain is a global biodiversity hotspot, ecologists are concerned about sweeping impacts. Looking at birds alone, there has been a dramatic decline in species found where biomass logging dominates.

The expansion of biomass in the U.S. is also a threat to public health. While its toxic byproducts are regulated, Environmental Integrity Project data shows that, in 2017, one in three wood pellet plants violated permitted limits. Even at legal limits, communities near these facilities have reported it necessary to wear masks outdoors.